John Connolly - The Reapers

“Was he any good?”

“I’m sure that he came highly recommended.”

“Yeah, I’d like to see the reference. It probably didn’t mention that he was prone to decapitation. Is that all you have for me?”

“Nearly.” Hoyle had confirmed what Milton had told Gabriel: there was a link to Leehagen. Now Gabriel explained what he knew of the man named Kyle Benton, and his connection to both Leehagen and one of the men who had died outside Louis’s building, although he did not tell Louis how long he had known about Benton.

“I’m looking into the rest,” he concluded. “These things take time.”

“How long?”

“A few days. No more than that. Did you believe all that Hoyle told you?”

“I saw a head in a jar, and a girl being eaten by hogs. They both looked real enough. Did you know that Luther Berger was really Jon Leehagen?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“Would it have made any difference?”

“Not then,” Louis conceded. “Did you know who his father was?”

“I was aware of him. He was a creature of contradictions. A hoodlum from the sticks, and an astute businessman. An ignorant man, but with low cunning. A cattle breeder and a pimp, but with mines to his name. An abuser and trafficker of women, who loved his sons. Not a threat, not in the circles in which you and I moved. Now he has cancer of the lungs, liver, and pancreas. He cannot breathe unaided. He is virtually housebound, apart from occasional excursions around his property in his wheelchair to feel fresh air upon his face. Therein lies the problem. I suspect that Hoyle may be right: if Leehagen is behind this, then he will keep coming at you, because he has nothing to lose. He will want you to die before he does.”

“And the enmity with Hoyle?”

“True, from what I can find out. They have long been rivals in business affairs, and were once rivals in love. She chose Leehagen, and gave him his two sons. She died of cancer, perhaps the same form of the disease that is now killing Leehagen himself. Their mutual antagonism is well known, although its precise roots appear to be lost in the past.”

“Did his son deserve to die?”

“You know,” said Gabriel, “I think I preferred you when you weren’t so scrupulous.”

“That’s not answering the question.”

Gabriel raised his hands in a gesture of resignation. “What does ‘deserving’ mean? The son was not so different from the father. His sins were fewer, but that was a consequence of age, not effort. A believer in God would say that one sin was enough to damn him. If that is true, then he was damned a hundred times over.”

For a moment, Louis’s features, usually so impassive, altered. He looked weary. Gabriel saw the change, but did not comment upon it. Nevertheless, in that instant Gabriel’s opinion of his protégé altered. He had, he supposed, entertained hopes that Louis might yet prove useful once again. He had been good at what he did, good at killing, but to maintain that edge required sacrifice. Call it what you would-conscience, compassion, humanity-but it had to be left bloody and lifeless upon the altar of one’s craft. Somehow, a little of the decency had been left in Louis’s soul, and over the last decade it had prospered and grown. Yet perhaps Gabriel, too, had failed to smother all of his natural feelings toward the younger man beneath a blanket of pragmatism. He would assist him in this one last matter, and then their relationship would have to come to an unconditional end. There was too much weakness in Louis now for Gabriel to be able to risk keeping the lines of communication open. Weakness was like a virus: it transferred itself from host to host, from system to system. Gabriel had survived in his various incarnations through a combination of luck, ruthlessness, and an ability to spot the flaws in human beings. He planned to live for a great many more years. His work had kept him young inside. Without such amusements, he would have withered and died, or so it sometimes seemed to him. Gabriel, despite all of his many talents and his instinct for survival, lacked the self-knowledge to understand that he had withered inside a long time before.

“And Bliss?” asked Louis.

“I have heard nothing.”

“Billy Boy was driving the car on the day that we took out Leehagen’s son.”

“I am aware of that.”

“Now he’s dead, and Ballantine’s gone-dead, according to Hoyle. If those killings are linked to Leehagen, then only you and I are left.”

“Well, then, the sooner we clear this whole affair up, the happier we will both be.” Gabriel stood. “I’ll be in touch when I have more to offer,” he said. “You can make your final decision then.”

He left the same way that he had entered. Louis remained seated, considering all that he had been told. It was more than he had before he arrived, yet it was still not enough.

From his perch on a garage roof, Angel followed Gabriel’s progress, watching as the sinister old man walked slowly up the alley, watching as he reached the street and looked left and right, as though undecided about which path beckoned him, watching as an old Bronco with out-of-state plates passed slowly, watching as flames leapt in the darkness of its interior, watching as the old man bucked and clouds of blood shot from his back as the bullets exited, watching as he folded to the ground, the redness pooling around him, the life seeping from him with every failing beat of his heart…

Watching, feeling shock, but no regret.

“He’ll live. For now.”

Louis and Angel were back in their apartment. It was late afternoon. The call had come through to Louis. Angel did not know from whom, and he did not ask. He only listened as his lover repeated what he had been told.

“He’s a tough old bastard,” said Angel.

There was no warmth to his tone. Louis recognized its absence.

“He would have let you die, if it suited him. It wouldn’t have cost him a moment’s thought.”

“No, that’s not true,” said Louis. “He would have spared a moment for me.” He stood at the window, his face reflected in the glass. Angel, damaged himself, wondered how much more damaged in turn this man whom he loved could be to retain such affection for a creature like Gabriel. Perhaps it was true that all men love their fathers, no matter how terrible the things they do to their sons: there is a part of us that remains forever in debt to those responsible for our existence. After all, Angel had wept when the news of his own father’s death had reached him, and Angel’s father had sold him to pedophiles and sexual predators for drinking money. Angel sometimes thought that he had wept all the harder because of it, wept for all that his father had not been as much as for what he was.

“If Hoyle is right, then Leehagen found Ballantine,” said Louis. “Maybe Ballantine gave him Gabriel.”

“I thought he always insulated himself,” said Angel.

“He did, but they knew each other, and there was probably only one layer, one buffer, between Ballantine and Gabriel, if that. It looks like Leehagen found it, and from there made the final connection.”

“What now?” asked Angel.

“We go back to Hoyle, then I kill Leehagen. This won’t stop otherwise.”

“Are you doing it for your sake, or for Gabriel’s?”

“Does it matter?” Louis replied.

And in that moment, had he been there to witness it, Gabriel might have seen something of the old Louis, the one he had nurtured and coaxed into being, shining darkly.

Benton called from a phone box on Roosevelt Avenue.

“It’s done,” he said. Benton’s wrist and shoulder ached, and he was sure that the latter had begun to bleed again. He could feel dampness and warmth there. He should not have taken it upon himself to fire the shots at the old man, not with the wounds that he had received at the auto shop, but he was angry, and anxious to make up for his failure on that occasion.